Paradigm
by JonasGrant
Summary: Sam Fisher, Douglas Shetland, Victor Coste, Anna Grímsdóttir, 'Kestrel' and Sarah Fisher all end up in the Mojave Wasteland. A father must protect his little girl, a traitor must redeem himself, an brother battles with jealousy, a lone wolf must work with this circus, and the the girls must deal with these clowns. Fun times.


**Author's**** Note: Written to practice my third person writing some more and because I've been downloading one mod too many and now need to get this off my mind.**

Within the shining technological maze of Big MT, six VR pods hummed in the dark, the result of a particularly interesting combination of Mentats, Psycho and Abraxo Cleaner within the brain jar of a certain Dr. Mobius, each pod contained a Lobotomite bred on site for precisely that purpose and all six Lobotomites were linked to the same virtual world, one that went according to Mobius' conception of reality, nearly three hundred years prior.

The first one created, fifty-five years prior, had gone right along the line intended for him by the doctor, though the purpose was unknown to just about anyone still sane to this day. He had been named Samuel Fisher and had been trained as a Navy SEAL, though his combat expertise had since grown beyond anything an army could provide even its most elite members, as could testify the second subject to be created.

Douglas Shetland, introduced in the VR two years after Samuel, had shown quite a few promises at first, this time as a Marine Recon member, but the simulation quickly began to seem wrong to the man, most likely a simple glitch, and logic flaws the should have been hidden were exposed to him like thumb prints on sunglasses. In the end, Shetland's attempts to destroy or re-shape the simulation brought Fisher to intervene.

The third pod was activated just about a year after and contained another Navy SEAL, meant as a failsafe in case Fisher did not turn out as expected.

The two quickly developed a very close bond that even the active attempts to break apart from the simulation itself ended as failures. Both men became figurative brothers, as well as literal ones, considering their similar DNA.

Almost fourteen years went on with the three warriors gaining in skills and working together against virtual enemies, facing tactical situations copied from all across history, from Anchorage to Normandy and Stalingrad, and they excelled every time, but either Mobius or the VR itself decided there was too much American testosterone involved for it to be… Well, there really was not any logical explanation as to why they did what they did next.

Anna Grímsdóttir, owing her name to a lack of information regarding other country's naming convention (despite that information being readily available in the Virtual Reality itself, logic had long since been discarded in favour of SCIENCE! With capital letter and an exclamation mark), Anna was not given a military background or any clear path to follow, and, as such, had far less mental limitation than the others. Small arms, explosives, electronics, communications, literature, the "Grimm Reaper" quickly rose to the honorary rank of Ice Queen, playing with the Virtual World and shaping it without realizing the impact she had.

One such impact manifested with a new Lobotomite being created when Anna was only eight years old, his DNA, personality and skills all shaped by the simulation's conception of Soviet Russia. Mikhail Andreyevitch Loskov was given birth by the cloning vats of the Big Empty without any influence from outside the simulation. His foster parents, hastily programmed AIs, ended up unable to control the young man's personality and he soon ran away to live in the street of St. Petersburg.

This, combined with many incompatibilities with the VR, prevented the boy from attaining the same kind of control Grímsdóttir had achieved and set him on the same path as the original subjects, only in another country.

The final subject came three years later, intended as a test of Fisher's mental resistance; a daughter, Sarah, that would be killed almost twenty years later, along with Sam's best friend, an advanced AI tailored to earn Fisher's trust.

The results exceeded any expectation and Sarah was brought back to life soon before the end of the experiment. The reason for this resurrection, though never clearly logged, seems to have been a self-preservation mechanism.

By the end of the test, the simulation itself was afraid of Fisher.

The flickering neon cast a harsh light on the six Homo Sapiens as they stumbled out of their pods, their muscles barely developed enough to support their weight, atrophied from having never really moved, yet kept functional by the constant impulses they would receive from the Lobotomites' brains, which, in itself, was an interesting paradox.

The Pods were laid out in a semi-circular configuration and Douglas Shetland had the misfortune to emerge right between the Fisher family. Muscle atrophy or not, Samuel quickly knocked the man to the floor to go defend his daughter while Grímsdóttir kneed Vic Coste in the groin for not keeping his eyes up.

The only Russian in the room simply shook his head at her when she threw him a glare and the two decided to avoid each other.

Anna's next comment pretty much summed up everyone's interrogations, "Why the hell am I naked, Sam?"

After checking on his daughter and searching the room for threats, Fisher finally turned to Grimm, "Couldn't pick a dress?" he spoke with a shrug.

The only way out was a thick-looking door with a knob in the center, but whatever waited on the other side would most likely require some punching and shooting at, and none of them seemed ready for a fight…

Except the Russian, but he seemed content with sitting on the side of his pod and counting the unused beds in the room. Eighteen, twenty four, if you included the newly vacated ones.

"Sarah, you stay with Anna," Sam spoke after a minute's consideration, "everyone else, we're going to scout this facility…" He looked down at Shetland, barely recovering from a rough introduction to the wall, and sneered at his former friend.

Douglas looked right back at Sam and the two stared for a few seconds.

Then Vic pointed out they were both stark naked and maybe should put some clothes on, lest this looks like some cheap gay porn.

The corridor beyond was clear and the men split in two groups, Coste and Shetland going left, up two flights of stairs, while Loskov followed Fisher right and through another door.

"What's your name?" Sam questioned as he peaked around a doorway.

"Kestrel." The Russian's gaze never left the lockers, lined in the center of the room, as he shuffled through them. Sam nodded after a moment. Question answered, topic closed.

Displaying the kind of creativity that had kept him alive out in the streets, Kestrel fashioned two ponchos out of trash bags and held them in place with duct tape. Not the most efficient camouflage ever, but they would at least reduce the awkwardness of the situation.

The facility had clearly been abandoned long ago, both men agreed on that when they noticed the footprints in the dust, theirs, and no one else's. It could take years for so much dust to collect in one place and, though both of them had done it on many occasion, not many people crawled on the ceiling for fun.

Catwalks, so rusted one could catch tetanus from looking at them, groaned under the men's weight as they stepped in yet another chamber, both out of breath from having walked five minutes at most.

Under their feet, mannequins stood, dark outfits and gadgets split between the four of them. Fisher recognized his outfit instantly, worn by two of the dummies, and so did Kestrel. They exchange a puzzled look, but not a word, before leaping over the railing in one motion.

They fell hardly two meters, but both sprawled on impact, wind knocked out of them like they'd been his in the chest with a sledgehammer.

Kestrel recovered first, his newer body much less decayed that Sam's, but the Splinter Cell's willpower got him up with only a small delay. Both spy then proceeded to gear up and inspect the room.

Tearing his poncho shamelessly, Kestrel selected a VR SV1 Akula outfit, the same he would wear in his time with Voron, while Samuel went for the same old RhinoPlate suit he'd worn from his first day in Third Echelon. The sonar goggles worn by the mannequins would need some replacement parts, but were both perfectly serviceable.

The additional dummies were outfitted with Voron issue gear or the latest Third Echelon stealth suits, in no way a step up as far as Fisher cared. They had just been Tom Reed's final insult to Lambert's work. He took them along nonetheless.

Gadgets ranged from fully functional OPSATs to simple combat knives and included the full toyshop along the way; sticky cams, optic fiber cables, lockpicks, GPS trackers, portable EMP generators and encrypted radios, a dozen of them, though the spies only took six.

Both still felt far too weak to fight, especially now with all this equipment weighting them down, but they were not defenceless any longer.

That sentiment lasted exactly three seconds, then Doctor Mobius busted through a door so covered in spider webs neither spies had spotted it.

"Marvelous!" the floating bundle of flailing mechanical limbs wailed on its way to them, " Klein will be mad with jealousy, my Lobotomites have hatched! Aha! But you're not ready to fight yet, oh nooooo!"

Kestrel just stared while Sam, his knive drawn, looked for a weakness. The machine went on rambling.

"A correct dosage of Buffout, proteins and exercise will see to this, yes! Or… No, electrode treatment? No! Too dangerous, tesla coils would take it, but those pulpy things in your cranial cages are just.. Too pulpy!"

"What is it talking about?" The Voron agent whispered, eyebrows raised so high it looked painful.

Fisher shrugged and went along with the hovering scientist when it dismissed the electrodes in favour for myostatin inhibitors and protein supplements.

"My daughter…"

Mobius interrupted the question before it was formed: "Yes! Daughter, brother, bastard and the odd fellow with that lost look, all coming! All needed!"

Kestrel looked at his sonar goggle's red optics. It might make him look like a confused emoticon somewhat…

Kestrel decided he didn't care and stepped in behind Fisher.


End file.
